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Working with Children and How Stuttering May Affect Them Differently

International Stuttering Awareness Day Posted on by

Hi! My name is Raygan Carr and I am studying Speech Pathology at the University of Akron. As an aspiring SLP who hopes to work with children, what are some techniques you have utilized to make the child more comfortable while treating them? I have siblings who are 3 and 4 years old who have given me lots of practice for working with children, but as we all know, children require a great amount of patience and may take an extra push for reaching a higher level of comfortability. Along with this, how has stuttering affected your younger clients in ways different from your older clients?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

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Working with Children and How Stuttering May Affect Them Differently — 1 Comment

  1. Hi Raygan-

    Thanks so much for reaching out and for your fantastic questions!

    I think one of the most important things that we can do as clinicians is to take time to establish a strong relationship with our clients – as this really is one of the most important factors in treatment success.

    With younger children, I find that getting down to their level, meeting them where they are, showing interest in what they are interested in, and really following their lead and allowing therapy to be more client-directed can really help. I’ve had many younger clients, who took a bit more time to warm up; however, when given the time, space, and encouragement – they really came out of their shell and opened up.

    I did some training in the area of Child-Adult Relationship Enhancement (CARE) when I was a new SLP and I think it helped me immensely when working with young children and their families. The training is based in the field of psychology, I believe; however, it really helps you to follow a child’s lead and gives you amazing skills in coaching parents to do the same when needed. I’ve found that a lot of what is talked about goes hand-in-hand with a lot of indirect preschool therapy approaches for stuttering.

    I also find that with younger children, their awareness of stuttering can be quite different. So, it can be helpful to think about that as we go into therapy. Many of the young children won’t know that they ‘stutter’ – as that word has no meaning to them. However, they may know that talking is hard at times. Other little ones may have no awareness at all. This is important to assess during the evaluation, as it can really help you to decide how to proceed with therapy.

    I hope this helps – please do let me know if you have any follow up questions.

    Please also say ‘HI’ to Dr. Palasik for me! He’s one of my closest friends – you have a great teacher! 🙂

    Good luck!
    ~Jaime

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